There have been many personal critiques of state Rep. Tricia Cotham’s character. They are well deserved, and I hope you’ll read them. But rather than her self-pitying political opportunism, I want to focus on the consequences that the newly minted Republican’s treachery will augur for millions of people in our state. They are, to put candidly, wide-ranging and devastatingly regressive. Tricia Cotham has made a decision out of personal expediency or social pique that will contravene the interests of millions of human beings.

I said I didn’t want to belabor Cotham’s duplicity, but on the issue of abortion her hypocrisy is an unavoidable subject. As a Democrat, Cotham made abortion rights a central feature of her brand. But her new party’s emphasis is entirely the opposite, and because of her reversal new restrictions on abortion are now guaranteed. Speaker Tim Moore has expressed support for a ban on abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy. As most people know–though the white men who compose the vast majority of Cotham’s new colleagues do not–most women do not even know that they are pregnant at the six-week threshold. Thus, Tricia Cotham has imposed forced birth on hundreds of thousands of North Carolina women.

Cotham always portrayed herself as a cheery and boosterish advocate for public education. But public schools, for so long a refuge for marginalized students may now become trans people’s undoing. Key forces in the Republican Party are very eager to pass a so-called “Parents’ Bill of Rights” which would force teachers to “out” trans children to their parents. This is the South, where conservative evangelicalism runs deep. It’s no secret that many conservative evangelicals are deeply intolerant of trans people, and cruel, abusive treatment of trans children is likely inevitable should the Republican Party use this new supermajority to pass their bill.

The curriculum of public schools is likely to be warped. Wedded to the simple verities of generations past, Republicans want ugly historical facts to be suppressed. This white fragility makes up the core of the anti-“Critical Race Theory” bill. In pointed contravention of historical fact, children would learn that our history is spotless and heroic, and that slavery was a regrettable outlier. The current repercussions of enslavement would be a verboten subject. As a result, whites would grow up oblivious, and Blacks would yearn for historical vindication that will not be forthcoming.

It’s been a decade since Republicans tore North Carolina apart in the 2013 legislative session. That year stood out for its extremism even by the standards of an ever-long counterrevolution. But thanks to Tricia Cotham’s decision to flout everything she ever told people she believed in, Republicans have the capacity to demolish what little is left of the state we knew. If you’re a woman forced to give birth, or a trans person afraid to tell a teacher who you are, Tricia Cotham…Tricia Cotham…Tricia Cotham caused your plight.

Alexander H. Jones

Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.